


The Evening Star

by GenericUsername01



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Beelzebub Centric, Demon Summoning, Gen, Sigils, Slavery, The testament of solomon, They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), Truth Serum, a truly shocking amount of blasphemy and sacrilege, off-screen mentions of violence, or the magical equivalent kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27241162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenericUsername01/pseuds/GenericUsername01
Summary: “Why are you alone the prince of demons?” King Solomon asked.“Because I was the highest-ranking angel in Heaven who Fell. I was called Beelzeboul. Now I control all those bound in Tartarus. But I have a child who haunts the Red Sea. He comes up whenever he can, and tells me what he has done, and I support him.”They clenched their fists so tight that their nails dug in and drew blood. It was like they couldn’t stop the words. Solomon hadn’t even asked about that specifically, but Beelzebub had thought it in answer to his question, and so the words had poured out. Uncontrollable.
Kudos: 12





	The Evening Star

**Author's Note:**

> For any who might not know, the Testament of Solomon is a pseudepigraphical text that claims to have been written by King Solomon in the tenth century BC but was really most likely written by a random Greek Christian somewhere between the first to fifth centuries AD. I was just reading it the other day for a big angelology project I'm researching and had emotions over it, but thankfully Good Omens exists so I can write a fanfic about sacred texts and demons. Anyway this fic will be borrowing from both the Conybeare and Duling translations based purely on which is cooler/more interesting for any given part. Some creative license is taken.
> 
> This has kind of an open ending? I just thought it was a good place to leave it. The demons aren't there long in the end

This totally wasn’t Ornias’s fault, in his opinion.

He had been harassing a child, ya know, standard demon stuff like stealing half his pay and food and also siphoning off a bit of his soul every day. Basically nothing more than some gentle occult bullying. Obviously the child began wasting away as his life force was drained. Totally normal. Everything had been going exactly as expected.

But it turned out that some holy king or whatever knew the kid and was fond of him, apparently. Long story short, the king had gone to the Temple and prayed, the Archangel Michael descended from Heaven and gave him a magic ring with a seal engraved into a precious gem, and _“Solomon, king, son of David, take this gift which the Lord God, the highest Sabaoth, has sent to you. With it, lock up all the demons of the Earth, male and female, and with their help you shall build Jerusalem when wearing this seal of God. And this engraving of the seal of the ring sent to you is a Pentalpha,”_ blah blah blah, Ornias had been tricked by the child and was now bound to the human king.

It was humiliating.

And that wasn’t even the worst part.

Ornias had been… terrified. A little. Maybe. And under compulsion he had confessed his true name, his occupations, his ability to change forms, that he was descended from an archangel, and that he was thwarted by Uriel. Then King Solomon ordered him to go to the quarry to cut stones for the Temple.

And just in case building a holy temple wasn’t bad enough, the work required using iron—an apotropaic of demons that would burn to touch.

“I beg you, King Solomon, let me go free, and I will bring you all the demons.”

The king gave him a considering look. There was too much wisdom in his eyes. His face had the slightly inhuman look common to Watchers because of it. It was the subtle mark of divinity at work within him.

Solomon turned up his face to the sky and prayed to Uriel.

* * *

Ornias had the ring.

Ornias had the ring and it didn’t mean anything because he was still acting under compulsion. His feet were running without any input from himself. He ran through the corridors of Hell, barging into a throne room without invitation, cringing and with his heart hammering hard enough to hurt.

“Solomon summons you!” he shouted.

“Who the fuck is Solomon?” Beelzebub asked.

He threw the ring and it hit Beelzebub’s chest and stayed there. Holy white light spread out from it in the shape of the seal, a harmonious tone ringing. Beelzebub cried out and spit fire. The other demons in the throne room and shouted and jumped away.

Ornias took off running back the way he came. And Beelzebub followed.

* * *

King Solomon, disgustingly, said a blessing to God upon seeing them.

Ornias had left back to the quarry.

“Tell me, who are you?” the human asked.

“I am Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons,” they said, even while trying to snap their jaw shut against the words. “All of the demons with chief seats are close to me. I am the one who makes manifest the corporation of each demon.”

Solomon gave them a considering look, eyeing them critically. Beelzebub tended to favor the clothing common to men of great wealth and power, far finer than what most demons wore in Hell. Though they were probably a few hundred years out of date currently. Humans changed their fashions so quickly. Demons tended to find something they liked and keep it until they hated it.

Beelzebub also maintained a certain level of androgyny. Apparently it was very effective.

“Are there any females among your kind?” Solomon asked, and Beelzebub was filled with near blinding rage.

“Yes,” they gritted out.

“I want to see them. Bring one to me.”

How delightfully predictable. The king with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines now wants to ogle a female demon.

Beelzebub raced off across the Earth at speeds impossible for any mortal, finding the nearest the Earth-bound demonic woman and dragging her back to Solomon just as fast.

Onoskelis. Mule demon, blonde, beautiful, kept her legs in the form of a mule. She was fond of lurking in caves, ravines, cliffs, etc. and also sleeping with men and strangling them. Born of an echo in the dark recesses of space.

“What angel thwarts you?” King Solomon asked.

“The one that’s using you,” Onoskelis said.

The king’s eyes hardened. “I will not have you mocking me. Strike her,” he said to one of his soldiers standing guard nearby. The man moved to do so, and Onoskelis shouted, shrinking back as much as she was able.

“No! No, I-I am subject to _you,_ King Solomon, by the wisdom of God given to you, and by the angel Joel.”

Solomon held up a hand. The guard halted immediately. “You will spin hemp for the ropes used in constructing the Temple. You will not stop, night or day.” He turned to Beelzebub again. “Bring me another demon.”

* * *

Asmodeus was nearly shaking with rage.

“Who are you?” Solomon asked.

He glared at him. “Who are _you?”_

“Really? You dare to answer so arrogantly, bound to me as you are?”

He scoffed. “How _should_ I answer you? You are a son of man, and even though I had a human mother, I am the son of an angel. It is impossible for a celestial being to speak ‘arrogantly’ to an earthly being. My constellation is an animal that reclines in its den in space; some call me the Great Bear, others the Offspring of a Dragon. Let me tell you something, _Solomon,_ eventually your kingdom will be divided. You have us to torture for a little while, but then we’ll go out among the humans again and be worshipped as gods.”

Solomon ordered him to be flogged.

Asmodeus was forced to confess to all the sins he committed and led others to commit. He was further compelled to name his angelic adversary, Raphael, and that he could also be repelled away by cooking the liver and gall of a sheatfish over charcoal. Also his weakness around water.

Solomon put irons on him and surrounded Asmodeus with large jugs of water and had him use magic to mold clay for the temple.

* * *

“Why are you alone the prince of demons?” King Solomon asked.

“Because I was the highest-ranking angel in Heaven who Fell. I was called Beelzeboul. Now I control all those bound in Tartarus. But I have a child who haunts the Red Sea. He comes up whenever he can, and tells me what he has done, and I support him.”

They clenched their fists so tight that their nails dug in and drew blood. It was like they couldn’t stop the words. Solomon hadn’t even asked about that specifically, but Beelzebub had thought it in answer to his question, and so the words had poured out. Uncontrollable.

Or rather, very tightly controlled, just not by them.

“Beelzebub,” the king said. He caught on quick. He knew that invoking a true name, combined with his seal, equaled compulsion. “What do you do?”

“I destroy kings,” they said, the words pushing past their lips without their say. "I urge tyrants to destroy. I send demons out to be worshipped as gods by you humans. I seek out the holy chosen ones of God and pressure them towards wickedness and all kinds of sin. I bring about jealousy and murder and war.”

“Bring me your child who is in the Red Sea.”

Beelzebub’s ichor froze in their soul. It was always cold, of course, but now their essence was emanating an oppressive chill of fear.

“I will bring no one back to you,” they said, surprising even themself. “But the demon Ephippas will bring him.”

Fuck.

“Tell me why he is in the Red Sea and what his name is.”

“Don’t ask me that; I don’t know it. But he’ll come to you because I’m here.”

It had been a safety measure. A precaution. Beelzebub wasn’t a fool and they had been around for a long time; when they had a kid, they gave him two names, one to be known widely and one to be kept secret, and he was old enough to understand, they instructed him to choose a third name for himself, and tell no one what it was.

Beelzebub, considering that third unknown one to be his true name, obviously could not tell anyone what their child’s name was.

“Tell me what angel thwarts you.”

They tilted their chin up. “I’m thwarted by God and God alone. Invoke _that_ name for your protection.”

Solomon narrowed his eyes. “I command you to go cut blocks of Theban marble for the Temple.”

Beelzebub glared right back. But almost immediately the magic made them move, and the other bound demons gasped to see their prince doing holy work. Ornias, in particular, began shaking again.

He could llikely imagine what was coming for him, after Beelzebub got them all out of this.

Solomon, being the biggest annoyance of the millennium, followed them to work. “If you want to be released from me, you’ll tell me about heavenly things.”

“Listen, _king,_ if you burn oil of myrrh, frankincense, and bulbs of the sea along with spikenard and saffron, and light seven lamps during an earthquake, you will strengthen your house. And if—being ritually clean—you light them at the crack of dawn, just before the sun comes up, you will get to see the heavenly dragons and the way they wiggle all around in the sky.”

He glared. “Shut up and keep cutting marble.”


End file.
